(1958- ) Canadian artist and writer, creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, the abrasive and perverse eponymous star of a satirical Comic book originally intended as a pastiche of Robert E Howard's Conan the Barbarian, and which has lampooned a number of the leading characters of the Heroic-Fantasy and comics genres. The comic book features several Parody characters including Elrod of Melvinbone (spoofing Michael Moorcock's Elric), Bran Mak Mufin (Howard's Bran Mak Morn) and The Roach, a deranged Superhero initially resembling Batman, whose multiple personalities include Wolveroach (echoing Wolverine from TheX-Men) and Swoon, a burlesque of Neil Gaiman's Dream or Morpheus in Sandman. Among the themes addressed by the Cerebus sequence are metaphysics, Politics, Feminism (highly controversially) and theology (> religion). An initially parodic depiction of Oscar Wilde led to a sombre depiction of the author's last days in the storyline collected as Melmoth (graph 1991).

Published by Sim himself, the comic book quickly became epic in scope, with the storyline running to 300 issues by the time it was completed in March 2004. Sim wrote and drew the entire 6000pp series with able assistance from the single-named artist Gerhard (1959- ), a singular achievement in the comics field. The entire series is available in reprint assemblage, beginning in series order with Cerebus (graph coll 1987), although the second volume, High Society (graph coll 1986), was actually published first. The publication of these thick "phone book" editions permanently changed the comics industry, showing both publishers and retailers the importance and economic value of collecting serialized comics in book or Graphic Novel form and then keeping these books in print for years at a time.

Sim, a polarizing figure for his views on Gender and Religion, has been a staunch proponent and supporter of creator rights, often assisting other artists in being able to publish and control their own material rather than work though corporate entities. He received numerous awards over the course of the Cerebus the Aardvark run, most notably the Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist in 1992. He was named to the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame in 2006. [RT/JP]

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